


class president approved

by irritable



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, not necessarily set in high school but they both attend the same school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 08:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7427851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irritable/pseuds/irritable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marceline was not below sneaking fifty bucks out of her dad's wallet every other month or so for a bus ride to a gay club two towns over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	class president approved

**Author's Note:**

> if the dialogue is wonky pls note i tried to mash our world with canon and i just sort of made them sound like weirdos
> 
> important:  
> \- i know nothing about the american of states united what is that is it on mars  
> \- unedited  
> \- bonnies last name is banner  
> (im sorry i just love the idea of a massive pink hulk)

The two hour long 9:00PM bus pulled up to a juddering halt outside the club. The stop was conveniently placed just opposite the club, so Marceline only had to cross the street after hopping off the bus.

She tugged at the sleeves of her cargo jacket, rolled her shoulders back, and dug her hands into the pockets of her skinny jeans. The guy at the door gave her a smile (silently, she thanked God for her height, at 176cm, she could just pass for a woman in her mid-twenties).

It wasn’t a big club, but it _was_ the only one catered to the LGBT+ community in the area – hell, it was probably one of the few in the entire fucking state.

Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but still it wasn’t like there were people lining up outside to get in, however the inside was packed with just about every queer person from the four towns (three nearby and the one she was currently in), Marceline being one of them, coming from a tiny everyone-knows-everyone church town.

Really, all four of the damned places were tiny everyone-knows-everyone church towns. This one was just more tolerant that the other three, resulting in everyone flocking in to let loose for one night of their lives.

And that was why Marceline was here, too. Relax. Stress-free is the way to go. Fuck, what she’d _pay_ to get her dad to be less of a bigoted asshole, seeing as he was the main cause of her stress.

(Music _isn’t_ useless, no matter how vehemently her dad insists otherwise. Just _imagine_ what he’d do if she came out to him! Though, at night, sometimes she’d think about it while lying on her bed, then all the scenarios she’d think up of would bum her out, so she drowned it out with her bass and emo lyrics or by wasting a month’s worth of allowance to hitch a ride so she could party with a bunch of sparkly strangers.)

Making it inside, she made a beeline to the bar, ordered a beer, and leaned on her elbows with her front facing the dancefloor. People, all sorts of them, slid against each other, most of them probably intoxicated, yet they looked content. She could _not_ wait to join them.

On average, she'd spend about two hours here before heading back, and dancing was usually the first thing on the agenda after grabbing a drink - she'd dance with total strangers and if the song playing was catchy enough, she'd hum along.

The crappy dance music transitioned into something less crappy, blasting through the speakers. Once she got her drink, she quickly downed it, payed, and moved to the crowd of sweaty bodies.

A woman in a dress coloured in dark maroons sidled up to Marceline, she smirked, hands finding the woman’s hips. “Hi,” she husked into the woman’s ear. No response other than a wicked grin. That was cool, she didn’t expect much of one – a lot of these people didn’t come here to make friends anyway.

Marceline cycled through about three more people before gently pushing away from a guy in a yellow polo and heading to the row of booths at the back of the club. She was tired, after all, just three hours ago she was hardcore jamming out with her band in Guy's garage, and besides, dancing was fun, but that was only the half of it.

The rest of her night usually consisted of drinking and sitting around flirting with other patrons. And also making out sometimes, but that rarely happened anymore due to her unfairly high standards.

(Which, by the way, were pushed way up after she made out with a guy called Ash with a charming smile, but an ugly personality and mono to match it. Then, _she_ got mono – it sucked. Boy, did she have fun explaining _that_ to her dad.)

All the seats were already taken, but she could always just share and maybe get someone's number while she's at it or something. She swept her gaze over the booths, immediately ruling out the ones filled with twinks or dry humping couples – _wait_. Marceline gaped.

No _fucking_ way.

Weaving her way through the crowd, she got to the last booth, by the jukebox. The girl chewed nervously on her bottom lip, not looking away from the rim of her glass. Gold. This was pure fucking gold.

There was _no way_. For a second, she thought she was going bonkers or maybe someone slipped something into her drink, but then again, there was definitely someone there and who else dyed their hair a blinding hot pink?

At school, everyone called her Princess Bubblegum, mostly due to the fact that the pink really reminded people of candy and also she could really be a prissy know-it-all when she wanted to.

She was the model citizen: community service, valedictorian, head cheerleader, and even the class president. Sort of an ice queen, too, although Marceline heard from somewhere that she _did_ have a nice side, it was just hidden beneath piles and piles of responsibility and science induced insanity.

Slapping on a shit eating grin, Marceline plopped herself down into the booth and wrapped a hand around five anxious fingers curled around a glass. Wide, apprehensive eyes shot up to meet Marceline’s, taking a few moments for recognition to set in.

“ _Bon_ nibel _Banner_ ,” she hooted over the bustle. The other girl shrank back. “Fancy seeing _you_ here!”

“Marceline Abadeer. Can’t say I’m surprised,” Bonnibel shot back, almost on instinct. Her back straightened up and her eyes narrowed.

Marceline grinned. This really _was_ the head bitch. Mind you, the head bitch who was always seen either with her face pushed up to a test tube or participating in some form of extracurricular activity – Marceline was pretty sure the only way to contact this girl was via phone or email, no Facebook or anything. This girl was whack, just like someone from six decades ago.

“So, why’re you here?” She pulled her hand back, realizing it was _still_ resting on Bonnibel’s hand. “I mean, you can’t be here to pick up chicks or get poo-brained.”

At that, Bonnibel huffed, indignantly. “Why can’t I?”

“Um, because you’re Princess fucking Bubblegum–”

“ _Don’t_ call me that.”

“And I’m pretty sure the only time I’ve ever seen you outside of school or your house was that time you were in a bookstore buying a beginner’s guide to rocket science or whatever.”

“I bought that four years ago.”

Marceline raised an eyebrow. “Exactly.”

“I don’t see your point,” Bonnibel retorted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Besides, I _have_ been to other places, Marceline. _And_ the ability to ‘pick up chicks’ and being dedicated to academia are completely unrelated and are not mutually exclusive. Duh.”

“Grocery store doesn’t count, _Bubblegum_ ,” said Marceline, shrugging and redirecting her gaze to the crowd.

Bonnibel sighed, uncrossing her arms to take a small sip from her fruity-whatever-ini. (Besides being a reclusive brain lord, the girl was also notorious for consuming the most toothrottingly sweet foods. See: Princess _Bubblegum_.) “So what are _you_ doing here, daughter of devout Christian?”

Marceline glanced over with a telling little smile, shrugged again, but said flippantly, “Picking up chicks.”

“By sitting opposite me?” she asked, dryly, lips twisted in sort of a half-smile.

Fair point. “Just here to have some fun. Y’know, party. Chill _._ ”

Bonnibel shifted in her seat, accepting the answer.

A pregnant silence followed, not unexpected, seeing as they barely knew each other despite growing up in the same place for their entire lives, heck, she doubted she needed two hands to count the number of times they’ve talked. Still, she cleared her throat. “I didn’t peg you for… for a…”

“A big whopping gay?” Marceline teased, wryly, with a snort, eliciting a scowl from Bonnibel, who couldn’t really see the humour in what she’d just said. “I’m not. A lesbian, I mean. I’m bi.”

“Oh, cool.” Bonnie nodded. Another pause. “Well, _I’m_ a lesbian.”

 “ _Really_?” Marceline was mostly just surprised she’d so readily say it aloud.

“Yeah. Pretty darn sure,” Bonnie said, sardonically, and she took another sip of her drink, almost innocently. (Ironic, considering she was an underage teen drinking at a night club miles from home.)

“Shit, I mean, good for you,” Marceline amended. “…But like, you’re _you_. My devout Christian father’s dream daughter. He’s always going on about how music sucks, and how I’m going to be a complete failure, and I should be more like _that Mr. Pepper’s niece_. ‘Pursue an _actual_ career _,_ Marceline.’” Then, Marceline paused, squinting at Bonnibel. “I’m going to be a singer after I graduate. With my friends.”

“Oh, yeah, _The Scream Queens_.” Bonnibel took a sip of her drink, missing the way Marceline’s eyes widened.

Their band wasn’t really kept a secret or anything dumb like that – she’d spent an entire week sticking posters everywhere with Keila – she just kinda assumed Bonnibel wouldn’t have noticed them. Who would have guessed? Bonnibel Banner: gay _and_ not disapproving of her chosen career path.

“Yeah, guess you saw the posters, huh?” Bonnie nodded into her drink, glancing up at Marceline through her eyelashes, and she couldn’t help but think that Bonnie looked kinda cute with tresses of pink falling over her shoulders and the cold flicker of strobe lights flashing across her flushed cheeks. “What about you? Are you gonna be a power CEO of a big company? Winner of ten Nobel prizes? Crazy scientist who accidentally starts the zombie apocalypse?”

That cracked a smile and Bonnie rolled her eyes. “Firstly, I’m already in line to be a power CEO, secondly, I don’t really care about winning prizes, and thirdly, I wouldn’t accidentally start a zombie apocalypse. I’m not _that_ sloppy.”

Whew. Well, fuck, she stopped listening after ‘secondly.’ Marceline let out a low whistle. “What company?”

“Candy manufacturer. _The Candy Kingdom_ ,” Bonnie replied, giving a tightlipped smile and rubbing at her skittish eyes. “I want to be a scientist for real, a biochemist, but I can’t let all the responsibility fall on my brother, so…”

Sensing the obvious discomfort, Marceline moved on. “Oh, yeah. Neddy, right?”

She always forgot Bonnie had a sibling, the girl could take up an entire room with just her presence, because of her slightly intimidating IQ and her tendency to act like a condescending fuckface; it was really easy to overlook the chubby kid brother she had – he was the kid that dozed off in her uncle’s classes, too, the one that Simon adored, but just couldn’t keep awake for over ten minutes.

“Yeah,” Bonnie affirmed, delicately, spacing out a bit as she continued, “I know he can be really shy, but he’s a good kid.”

Marceline nodded, but before she could reply, her phone buzzed in her pocket, letting her know it was time to head back before it got late enough for her dad to catch her sneaking back in. She disabled the alarm and gave Bonnie a lazy smile.

“Yo, Bonnie, I gotta hit the road now, so…” Marceline licked her lips. “Sorry you didn’t get any numbers from cute girls, I guess.”

Bonnie snapped out of her stupor and blinked, bewildered. “Oh. I guess I should go, too.”

Which reminded her… Marceline furrowed her eyebrows. She forgot to ask how Bonnie even got here and it was unlikely Mr. Pepper would let his precious niece go clubbing underage in the dead of night, so that only meant– “Oh my God. Did you sneak out?”

“ _No_.” Bonnie didn’t meet her eyes. “That’s absurd!”

“Sure.” Marceline smirked. “So, _hypothetically_ , if you called your Uncle Pepper right now, he’d be completely okay with all this? Bonnibel Banner, a billion miles away from home in a gay club and hanging out with _Marceline_ _Abadeer_?”

Pouting, Bonnie clambered out the booth, skirting the crowds as Marceline trailed behind, close enough to hear the other girl. “Okay. So what? I did. _You_ did it, too. Also, I don’t think he’d say anything about you if I _did_ hang out with you.”

“Man, I’m learning _so_ much about you,” Marceline said, grinning wildly. “You’re right, education is _great_.”

Bonnie scoffed.

Finally, they made it out the door, immediately being hit in the face by the smell of cigarette smoke and the gas puttering out the back of a bus as it dragged away from the station – Marceline whined under her breath as it gunned away, too far for her to chase.

Bonnie, being the one in front, stalled and waited for Marceline to adjust to the colder night air, then headed towards the parking meters after Marceline finished adjusting her jacket.

She frowned and turned back around when she noticed Marceline lagging back. She raised an eyebrow, making the connection. “You took the _bus_ all the way here?”

Marceline snorted, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “I don’t have a car, Princess, so yeah, I did.”

“Well, don’t be silly,” Bonnie huffed when Marceline scuffed the ground with her feet and made to turn back. “We live in the same town, numbskull, I’m not going to let you take a bus when I have a _car_. Come on, then.”

“I liked you better when you had your face wedged in the last paragraph of Claude Shannon’s _A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits_ ,” Marceline muttered, jogging to catch up with Bonnie. “Thanks.”

Bonnie seemed to ignore her gratitude in favour of rifling through her purse for her keys, or maybe she didn’t actually hear Marceline, but that was unlikely, seeing as they were barely two feet apart. Speaking of which, Marceline distanced herself, shuffling around to the passenger seat and tapping a random beat on the door handle whilst Bonnie dug her keys out.

After sliding in and getting settled, Bonnie glanced over and, holy shit, Marceline was pretty sure that was the beginnings of a _smirk_ on Bonnie’s usually impassive face. “I’m surprised you know who Claude Shannon even was, let alone what the title of his thesis was.”

So the asshole _did_ hear her. Marceline pouted, huffing a little, and turned her chin up. “You do know I have other interests besides music, right? I like computer stuff, too. Thanks for the vote of confidence, though.”

“You can’t blame me,” Bonnie scoffed as she started the car. “When I see you at school, you’re either pranking people with your friends or jamming out with Mr. Petrikov on top of the workbenches like a total weirdo.”

Okay, yeah, she did do that – _but_ only once, because after that incident Simon scolded her for convincing him it was a good idea to dance near a big ass cabinet full of dangerous chemical junk – and who was Bonnie to call _her_ a weirdo, the girl did _science_ for fun.

“Spying, are we?”

Bonnie flushed, pink colouring her cheeks. Interesting, Marceline noted. “I was going to ask him a question about an assignment he set for the class, but he was a bit occupied with an imaginary drum kit.”

“You should see him with actual drums. Simon _kills_.” Marceline hummed a tune, pretending to smash on some air drums. She went on to mumble some lyrics under her breath when Bonnie didn’t respond.

At a red light, Bonnie opened her mouth to say something, closed it, and shot her a look. “ _Seatbelt_ , Marceline. God.”

“Sure, _dad_ ,” Marceline huffed, pulling the strap around herself anyway.

Bonnie wrinkled her nose, but otherwise ignored the comment, opting instead to filling in the silence. “Do you want to play some music? My radio sucks, but I’ve got a few CDs dumped in the top compartment in front of you.”

“Sweet,” Marceline blew out with a breath. She guessed classical and _lots_ of Taylor Swift. Tugging it open, she found a total of 6 CDs packed tightly in the tiny compartment. _Fuck_ , Marceline stifled a laugh. “ _My Chemical Romance_?”

“That’s Neddy’s,” Bonnie said, immediately. “He also likes Bon Jovi.”

“And _21 Pilots_ is his too?”

Bonnie’s thumbs tapped out the rhythm of a song that sounded suspiciously like _Car Radio_ on her steering wheel. “That one’s mine.”

Sheesh. Okay, well, there _was_ a playlist full of Mozart and Bach, so Marceline was only _half_ wrong. She scanned the rest of the track list and, unsurprisingly, found a compilation of more classical music; she slid that one back with _My Chemical Romance_.

This was _wild_. She chortled and raised her eyebrows at Bonnie. “Next up in Bonnie’s cray music library… _Swan Lake: the Audiobook_ and _Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality_?”

“Childhood.” Then, Bonnie widened her eyes, almost comically, and pitched her voice higher. “ _Education_.” Jesus, this girl was weird as fuck and Marceline, oddly, loved it. (She was _pretty_ sure whatever it was Bonnie was drinking was messing with her a little.)

“My God,” Marceline snorted. “Your music library is a rollercoaster.”

She squeezed the CDs back, leaving only _21 Pilots_ and the last CD in her lap. Her eyes almost bugged out of her fucking face. “ _Flaming Marshmallows_?”

She did not see this coming. Bonnibel Banner listened to full on metal. “That one is mine, too.”

“I’ve been _lied_ to for my entire life,” Marceline whispered, dramatically. “The great _Princess_ _Bubblegum_ is no better than me, Marceline, a deviant who listens to the sounds of crying babies and smokes weed below the bleachers! The world is fudged, Bonnie. _Fudged_.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Bonnie scoffed, but grinned nonetheless at Marceline’s dramatics. “Just choose a CD, nerd.”

“ _I’m_ a nerd? If that isn’t Charles Darwin’s massive _nerd_ -book in the backseat of your car, then I don’t know what is.” She put in the second choice and shoved _21 Pilots_ back into the compartment.

Bonnie made a little noise in the back of her throat at the music and Marceline took it as approval.

“You ever been to a concert?” Marceline asked, canting her head slightly, so she could see Bonnie and sit comfortably.

“No. There’s no _time_. This is actually the first time I’ve ever gone out for fun just because.”

Like this, with the wan, yet warm glow of the streetlights morphing into shapeless pools of light across Bonnie’s round face, she looked her actual age. Her eyebrows weren’t pushed in a frown and, for the first time this night (and probably Marceline’s entire life), she looked relaxed. Carefree. Like a proper teenager and not someone who grew up too soon, too fast. A massive contradiction to everything Bonnie was.

Marceline mouthed a ‘wow,’ not noticing as they passed an exit that meant they were half way home. “The _first_ time?”

“Excluding my childhood, yeah.” Bonnie kept her eyes on the road. “Most of the time, Rain _makes_ me go out shopping with her or Elle has the occasional sleepover that I’m obligated to go to.”

“You should take a break more often.”

Bonnie only shrugged in response, successfully killing the conversation off. Touchy.

Not really minding, Marceline closed her eyes, letting the heavy, angst-fest lyrics fill up the silence for the rest of the ride. Occasionally, she’d hear Bonnie let out a quiet murmur or sigh, but she stayed quiet, deciding to give her some space.

She must have drifted off, probably sometime around the fourth track, one of the more mellow songs on the album, because she awoke to gentle nudging. It was darker than before and the music was turned down, still playing, but barely audible.

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and yawned, blinking groggily at the numbers on the radio. Just shy of three in the morning. They probably left the club at around half twelve, meaning they should have arrived, if not, neared their home town.

“Marceline. Come on.”

“Princess Bubblegum?” she asked, heavy with sleep, which probably came out as something more like ‘prr… bub-gum?’

In response, she got a disgruntled huff, then: “Yeah, Marcy. I need you to point out directions. Can you do that?”

Marceline grunted, cleared her throat. “Shit, yeah.” She sat up and peered out the windows, eyes still blurry with just-woke-up eye stuff. “Okay, um…”

“We’re outside the mall,” Bonnie provided.

Oh. Yeah, she could see the dark storefront with a massive _Juice Goose_ logo stuck on the glass by a special deal poster, meaning they were in the parking lot outside the mall. “Uh, left. I mean, the second one.”

Bonnie didn’t move the car, not even an inch.

Marceline rubbed her eyes again. “You’re friends with that kid, Finn, right? He’s my neighbour. Opposite my house.”

Coherent sentences, good job, Marceline. She repressed another yawn and blinked the sleep out of her eyes as Bonnie finally put the car in motion and began the short journey over to her house.

To keep awake, Marceline counted the house numbers as they passed.  “Number three… number four… number five… and number six.”

The car lulled to a stop outside her house.

She nodded (more to herself than to Bonnie) and double-checked her pockets for her wallet and phone. After ensuring everything was A-Okay, she turned to Bonnie, who was glancing out the driver’s side window, and gave her a smile when she turned around. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Yeah,” Bonnie responded, softly, reaching out to eject the CD entirely. “No problem.”

With one final grin and twiddle of her fingers as a parting, Marceline climbed out the car.

She promptly turned back around half way to her front door and jogged back, the windows rolling down as she approached.

“Did you forget…?” Marceline bent over to lean into the car, her torso pushed almost all the way in, and Bonnie trailed off. She furrowed her eyebrows and stared at Marceline expectantly, one hand still on the steering wheel as Marceline grinned wildly at her.

She reached in for the sharpie wedged between an empty Starbucks cup and the side of the cup holder, took the slightly damp napkin scrunched up in the second cup holder as well, and scrawled on the corner of the tissue. “There,’ she said, incredibly proud of herself. “The night wasn’t a total waste. You got a girl’s number, Bonnie.”

Bonnie stared at her, wide eyed, when she dumped the pen and her number in the passenger seat. “Marceline–”

“Good night, Bonnie,” she interrupted. This time, when she backed away, she didn’t turn back around, only jogged to her front door to grab the spare keys under the mat to let herself in.

The sound of the car engine faded away only after she was already half way to her room with her boots kicked off, and she hit her pillow like a bag of bricks, buttons half way undone and the smug grin on her face slipping into a tiny lilt as she dozed off.

The next time she woke up, it was a beautiful Saturday morning and her phone blinked happily at her: _1 unread message_.

**Author's Note:**

> it took me five days to write this bc im so slow and writers block has kicked me right in the face 
> 
> so i finally caught up with everything and season 7 has just added a brand new flannel on their fishing hook: queer baiting on a whole new level i love it
> 
> all right so i felt guilty for reading everything in the tag but not doing anything in return so have this fic which was really hard to write bc im Trash and Trash gets distracted easily 
> 
> idk pls send me constructive criticism i feel like the pacing was iffy help me
> 
> tumblr: portiallin


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